################################################################################ RELEASE NOTES ============== Basler blaze Legacy SDK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Note: The Basler blaze Legacy SDK should only be used when migrating/updating existing applications. For the development of new applications Basler recommends using the pylon Camera Software Suite and the pylon Supplementary Package for blaze instead. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Note: The Basler blaze Legacy SDK no longer contains the blaze Viewer, the IP Configurator tool, or any programming samples. If you want to use the blaze Viewer or the IP Configurator, you must also install the latest versions of the pylon Camera Software Suite and the pylon Supplementary Package for blaze. Version: 4.5.0 Release date: 2023-09-30 Preceding release: 4.3.1 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revisions 03 or above blaze-102 (order number 108711) NEW FEATURES ----------- * Added support for new camera features introduced with blaze firmware version 5.0.0. CHANGES -------- * Removed the blaze Viewer, the IP Configurator, and the programming samples from the setup packages. * Fixed an issue causing a connection loss when issuing a PtpDataSetLatch command. * The Windows installer includes the latest version of the pylon GigE filter driver. ################################################################################ Version: 4.3.1 Release date: 2022-11-09 Preceding release: 4.3.0 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revisions 03 or above blaze-102 (order number 108711) CHANGES -------- * Fixed a bug causing the application to crash when there is a high amount of network packet losses and packets at the beginning of an image frame are lost. * The Extended ID feature is also supported on Windows systems. * The Windows installer includes the latest version of the pylon GigE filter driver. ################################################################################ Version: 4.3.0 Release date: 2022-10-24 Preceding release: 4.2.0 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revisions 03 or above blaze-102 (order number 108711) NEW FEATURES ------------- * Added support for Basler blaze-102 cameras. * Added support for new camera features introduced by blaze firmware version 4.3. * blaze Viewer: New point cloud window. To open a point cloud window that renders colored point clouds, select "New Point Cloud Windows (Confidence Color)" in the "Window" menu. In this point cloud window, the hue indicates the distance of a point and the intensity of the color visualizes the assigned confidence value. CHANGES -------- * Windows installer and binaries are code-signed to prevent Windows warnings about software from an unknown publisher. * Linux: Ubuntu 16.04 is no longer supported. * Linux: There are no separate installation packages without a blaze viewer anymore. KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ Windows: * If the Extended IDs feature is enabled, acquiring images is not possible. Either disable extended IDs or select the socket driver as stream grabber type. ################################################################################ Version: 4.2.1 Release date: 2022-07-13 Preceding release: 4.2.0 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revision 03 or above, firmware version 3.0 or above. CHANGES -------- * The Windows installer includes the latest version of the pylon GigE filter driver. * The Windows installer no longer includes the pylon GigE performance driver. KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ General: * A programmer's guide and API documentation are not available yet. * On ARM systems, the Basler blaze Viewer may fail to render point clouds. Use the blaze Viewer included in the pylon Supplementary Package for blaze instead. ################################################################################ Version: 4.2.0 Release date: 2022-05-06 Preceding release: 4.1.0 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revision 03 or above, firmware version 3.0 or above. NEW FEATURES ------------ * Added support for the following camera features introduced with firmware version 4.2: - DistortionCorrection - HDRMode - ExposureTimeSelector - DeviceTemperatureSelector -> Sensor - PersistentLogging CHANGES -------- * Standardization of naming: Instead of 'range', the term 'depth' is now used for depth data. Further information on the image formats can be found in the Basler Product Documentation: https://docs.baslerweb.com/component-selector * Fixed issues related to thread local storage when an application uses the thread local storage implementation provided by boost C++ libraries under Linux. Issue occurred for example in Robot Operating System (ROS)-based applications. KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ General: * A programmer's guide and API documentation are not available yet. * On ARM systems, the Basler blaze Viewer may fail to render point clouds. Use the blaze Viewer included in the pylon Supplementary Package for blaze instead. ################################################################################ Version: 4.1.0 Release date: 2022-02-03 Preceding release: 4.0.0 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revision 03 or above, firmware version 3.0 or above. This pre-release targets ARM devices only. Note: The Basler blaze Legacy SDK should be used only when migrating/updating existing applications. For the development of new applications Basler recommends using the pylon Camera Software Suite 6.2 (or above) and the pylon Supplementary Package for blaze 1.1 (or above) instead. NEW FEATURES ------------ Support for ARM 64 bit devices running Ubuntu 18.04 or newer. * The SDK may work on other distributions as well when the following requirements are met: * gcc Version 7.5 or above * binutils 2.30-21 or above * libc6 2.27-3 or above * libstdc++6 8.4.0 or above KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ General: * A programmer's guide and an API documentation are not available yet. * On ARM systems, the Basler blaze Viewer might fail to render point clouds. Use the blaze Viewer included in the pylon Supplementary Package for blaze instead. ################################################################################ Version: 4.0.0 Release date: 2021-04-09 Preceding release: 3.0.1 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revision 03 or above, firmware version 3.0 or above. NEW FEATURES ------------ * Added support for the following camera features introduced with firmware version 4.0: - DeviceUserID - AmbiguityFilter - AmbiguityFilterThreshold - OutlierRemovalThreshold - StreamChannelCount - EventChannelCount * The blaze Viewer is available for x64 CPUs running Ubuntu 18.04 or above. * Added the SavePointCloudCSharp C# sample illustrating how to save a point cloud to file. * Added the ShowPointCloud Python sample illustrating how to use the Open3D library with a blaze camera. * Added the SimpleGrab_Callback Python sample illustrating how callbacks can be used to get notified about acquired data. * Added several samples for MVTec HALCON. CHANGES ------------ * Made Device Reset feature accessible in blaze Viewer. * Added Win32 version resource to .NET assembly. * ColorAndDepthFusion sample: For performance reasons, live display of calibration pattern detection was disabled. * Device enumeration no longer produces false debug messages warning about failing camera access. * Fixed handling of read-only parameters by the blaze Viewer. * Fixed socket buffer size parameter that previously showed wrong value. COMPATIBILITY/MIGRATION ------------------------ *WARNING*: This SDK release is only compatible with blaze-101 cameras with firmware versions 3.0 or above. For blaze-101 cameras with firmware versions below 3.0, a firmware update is required. Mixing 2.x cameras with 3.x cameras in the same application is not possible. Firmware update packages and update instructions can be downloaded here: https://www.baslerweb.com/baslermedia/blaze-getting-started/?dir=Firmware *WARNING*: When updating the blaze SDK, applications built using an SDK below version 3.0 have to be recompiled. You should review and adapt your code if it is affected by the feature changes listed in the blaze-101 firmware release notes. Especially, if your application uses the confidence map or if it adjusts the ConfidenceThreshold parameter, your code has to be adapted when you are updating from Basler blaze SDK 2.3 or below. See the MIGRATION GUIDE section below for more details. MIGRATION GUIDE ---------------- Migrating from SDK 1.x: Refer to the Migration Guide section of the SDK 2.1.0 change notes below for information about breaking changes between the 2.x and 1.x SDK releases. When migrating from SDK 2.x, you have to take the following information into account: * Starting with firmware version 3.0, confidence maps no longer contain binary information only. Instead, 16-bit values indicate the confidence in the depth data. As a result, the Confidence8 pixel format is no longer supported by blaze-101 cameras. If your application uses 8-bit confidence maps, you have to change your code to use the Confidence16 pixel format and to process 16-bit confidence maps. * The value range of the ConfidenceThreshold parameter has been adjusted to match the values in the confidence map. When your application sets a ConfidenceThreshold value, you have to multiply the value set previously by 16 to achieve the same effect as with previous firmware versions. When migrating from SDK 3.x, you don't need to recompile your application unless you want to use camera features introduced with firmware version 4.0 or above. KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ General: * A programmer's guide and an API documentation are not available yet. * Sample code for the Synchronous Free Run and Multi-Camera Channel features is currently available for C++ only. Although no samples are provided, the features are available when using C#, Visual Basic, and Python. Linux: * The Basler blaze Viewer is supported only on x64 systems running Ubuntu 18.04 or above. There may be other Linux distributions on which the blaze Viewer will run but Basler has only tested with Ubuntu Linux. ################################################################################ Version: 3.0.1 Release date: 2021-01-06 Preceding release: 3.0.0 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revisions 03 or above, firmware version 3.0 or above. CHANGES ------------ - GenTL producer is compatible with pylon now. - Fixed potential network bandwidth issue in ColorAndDepth C++ sample. ################################################################################ Version: 3.0.0 Release date: 2020-12-11 Preceding release: 2.1.0 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revisions 03 or above, firmware version 3.0 or above. NEW FEATURES ------------ - Multi-camera support via Synchronous Free Run and Multi-Camera Channel features. - Driver for the Robot Operating System (ROS). Source code and instructions can be found in the Samples/ROS folder. - C++ sample code demonstrating how to operate multiple cameras using the Multi- Camera Channel and the Synchronous Free Run features. - C++ samples contain PtpHelper library providing functionality for operating multiple cameras using the Synchronous Free Run feature. - Added source code of the FeatureDumper tool as C++ sample. - Added SaveAndLoadPointCloudPCL.cpp sample illustrating how to save and load point clouds using the Point Cloud Library (PCL). CHANGES -------- - Confidence map no longer contains binary information only. Instead, 16-bit values indicate the confidence in the depth data. The blaze Viewer displays the confidence values. - The value range of the ConfidenceThreshold parameter has been adjusted to match the values in the confidence map. When your application sets a ConfidenceThreshold value, you have to multiply the previously set value by 16 to achieve the same effect as with previous firmware versions. - The Confidence8 and Mono8 pixel formats are no longer available for confidence maps. Use the Confidence16 pixel format instead. - Improved checks whether the camera's firmware is compatible with the SDK. - C++ API: Added convenience functions for accessing parameters. The C++ samples have been adapted to use the new functions. - Acquisition frame rate no longer has to be set as a whole number. - blazeLister tool shows firmware version of all connected blaze cameras. - Bugfix: Feature settings files saved with the blaze Viewer were incomplete. - Bugfix: blaze Viewer saved depth images in 8-bit format. - Bugfix: blaze Viewer crashed when using Unicode characters in file names. - Bugfix: AcquisitionFrameRate could be set when in software trigger mode. ################################################################################ Basler blaze SDK Version: 2.1.0 Release date: 2020-09-07 Preceding release: 2.0.2.0 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revisions 03 or above, firmware version 2.0 or above NEW FEATURES ------------ * Support for Basler blaze-101 revision 08 (firmware version 2.3). New parameters: - ZOffsetOriginToCameraFront - SensorPosition - SensorPixelWidth - SensorPixelHeight * Installer for Windows * .NET API and C# and Visual Basic samples * Added the ColorAndDepthFusion C++ sample that illustrates how to calibrate a Basler GigE color camera and fuse the color image into a colored point cloud. * Added the "Basler blaze SDK.md" document providing information about how to build applications using the blaze SDK. CHANGES -------- * Fixed some stability issues. * Updated the GenApi library. For Linux, the names of the GenApi shared libraries have changed. Depending on the build system you use, you might have to adapt your linker settings. Pass the following options to the linker: -lGenApi_gcc54_v3_1_Basler -lGCBase_gcc54_v3_1_Basler * For blaze-101 revision 08 or newer resp. firmware version 2.3 or newer, the Thermal Dift Correction feature is enabled by default. COMPATIBILITY/MIGRATION ------------------------ The Basler blaze SDK 2.0 is compatible with blaze-101 cameras with firmware versions 2.0 or above only. Note: Applications built using the Basler blaze SDK 2.0 can't access cameras with firmware versions before 2.0. These cameras have to be updated to firmware 2.0 or above when you migrate to the Basler blaze SDK 2.0. That means, when migrating from blaze SDK 1.0.13 or before, the firmware of blaze-101 cameras with hardware revision below 7 must be updated. Note: Depending on the Basler blaze SDK version an application is built with, an application can either operate cameras with firmware version 1.x only or firmware version 2.x only. Mixing 1.x cameras with 2.x cameras in the same application is not possible. A firmware field update package and update instructions can be downloaded from: https://www.baslerweb.com/baslermedia/blaze-getting-started/Firmware Firmware 2.0.0 introduced some breaking changes that require you to check and adapt your application code. Refer to the "Migration Guide" section below for details. MIGRATION GUIDE ---------------- The blaze-101 firmware 2.0 introduced some breaking changes. If you intend to update the camera firmware or to access blaze-101 cameras with revision 7 or above, you have to update and rebuild your application using the Basler blaze SDK 2.0 or above. * Renaming of camera parameters Some camera parameters have been renamed: Former Feature Name New Feature Name --------------------------------------------------------------- fx Scan3dFocalLength fy Scan3dFocalLength cx Scan3dPrincipalPointU cy Scan3dPrincipalPointV Please check your code for the former feature names and replace them with the new names instead. * Changed OperatingMode parameter and added FastMode parameter. Check your code whether it sets the OperatingMode parameter. If your code sets OperatingMode to "MidRange", change "MidRange" to "LongRange" instead. If your code sets OperatingMode to "LongRangeHQ", set OperatingMode to "LongRange" and FastMode to false. You should decide whether to enable FastMode. There is a trade-off between depth data accuracy and speed, i.e., frame rate. To achieve the highest accuracy, set FastMode to false. In order to maximize the frame rate or to reduce motion artifacts, set FastMode to true. The general recommendation is to operate the camera with FastMode disabled (which is the default configuration). FastMode should only be enabled if the frame rate is not sufficient or to reduce motion artifacts. * Removed CBlazeCamera::Coord3D::IsValid() method, a user-settable value identifying missing depth data. Starting with firmware version 2.0, the Scan3dInvalidDataValue camera parameter allows you to specify a value for identifying missing depth data. If there is no valid depth data for a certain sensor pixel, in depth images the corresponding pixel will be set to the value specified here. In point clouds, all 3 coordinates of the corresponding point are set to this value. The default value for Scan3dInvalidDataValue is zero. In previous versions of the SDK, in case of missing depth information all 3 coordinates of a point in the point cloud were set to NaN. The CBlazeCamera::Coord3D::IsValid() convenience method allowed you to check for NaNs. Since the value used for indicating missing depth data is configurable and defaults to zero, this convenience function has been removed. You have to change your code accordingly. Refer to the ConvertPointCloud2DepthMap sample included in this SDK for an example how the check can be performed. KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ General: * A programmer's guide and an API documentation are not available yet. Linux: * The Basler blaze Viewer is not available for Linux yet. ################################################################################ Version: 2.0.2.0 Release date: 2020-07-16 Preceding release: 2.0.1.0 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revisions 03 or above, firmware version 2.0 or above CHANGES -------- - Fixed issue where stopping image acquisition could cause a delay. COMPATIBILITY/MIGRATION ------------------------ The Basler blaze SDK 2.0 is compatible with blaze-101 cameras with firmware versions 2.0 or above only. Note: Applications built using the Basler blaze SDK 2.0 can't access cameras with firmware versions before 2.0. These cameras have to be updated to firmware 2.0 or above when you migrate to the Basler blaze SDK 2.0. That means, when migrating from blaze SDK 1.0.13 or before, the firmware of blaze-101 cameras with hardware revision below 7 must be updated. Note: Depending on the Basler blaze SDK version an application is built with, an application can either operate cameras with firmware version 1.x only or firmware version 2.x only. Mixing 1.x cameras with 2.x cameras in the same application is not possible. A firmware field update package and update instructions can be downloaded from: https://www.baslerweb.com/baslermedia/blaze-getting-started/Firmware KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ General: * A user's manual and an API documentation are not yet available. Linux: * The Basler blaze Viewer is not available for Linux yet. ################################################################################ Version: 2.0.1.0 Release date: 2020-07-10 Preceding release: 2.0.0.1 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revisions 03 or above, firmware version 2.0 or above CHANGES -------- - Fixed partially incomplete sample code snippets displayed in the blaze Viewer's documentation window. - Fixed a bug in the blaze Viewer preventing users from changing some integer parameters. - The blaze SDK 2.0.0.1 contained outdated firmware release notes. - Moved the CMake find module for the Basler blaze SDK. The find module is now located in the lib/cmake subfolder. - Reworked some comments in the C++ samples. Added README.txt for the samples. - Optimized bandwidth usage in the color_and_depth.py sample. The color camera is triggered first to allow it to start transferring image data while the blaze camera is still internally processing the acquired data. - Added document providing information how to migrate from Basler tof640-20gm cameras to Basler blaze-101 cameras. ################################################################################ Version: 2.0.0.1 Release date: 2020-06-24 Preceding release: 1.0.13 Products affected: blaze-101 (order number 107796), revision 03 or above, firmware version 2.0 or above CHANGES -------- - Improved GenICam GenTL compatibility. The Basler GenTL producer for blaze-101 cameras passes the GenTL 1.5 certification test suite. - Using the ComponentSelector and PixelFormat camera parameters, depth data can be either sent as 3D point clouds (PixelFormat=Coord3D_ABC32f) or 2D depth images (PixelFormat=Coord3D_C16). The PixelFormat Coord3D_ABC32f is the default pixel format for depth data. - Missing depth information is no longer indicated as a triple of NaN values in point clouds. Instead, by default, the coordinate values of points without depth information are set to zero. The value used for marking missing depth information can be set with the Scan3dInvalidDataValue camera parameter. Note: This is a breaking change and you will most likely have to adapt your application code. Refer to the Migration Guide section below for more details. - Removed CBlazeCamera::Coord3D::IsValid() method. Refer to the Migration Guide section below how to check whether there is valid depth data for a point in a point cloud. - Added Python samples that illustrate basic camera usage and how to operate a blaze-101 camera together with a Basler ace GigE color camera. - Added C++ samples, e.g. the ColorAndDepth C++ sample that illustrates how to operate a blaze-101 camera together with a Basler ace GigE color camera. - Improved and optimized the MVTec Halcon sample. - Fixed bug causing the blaze Viewer to crash when saving depth information using radial distances. - The blaze Viewer accepts 'NaN' (Not a Number) as input value for the Scan3dInvalidDataValue parameter. - The blaze Viewer displays confidence maps. - The blaze Viewer doesn't display timeout error messages when the TriggerMode camera parameter is enabled. KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ General: * A user's manual and an API documentation are not yet available. Linux: * The Basler blaze Viewer is not available for Linux yet. ################################################################################ Version: 1.0.13.1 Release date: 2020-01-20 Release type: beta (incomplete functionality) Preceding release: 1.0.11 COMPATIBILITY/MIGRATION ------------------------ The Basler blaze SDK 1.0.13.1 is compatible with blaze-101 cameras with firmware versions 1.0.13 up to 1.0.15. blaze-101 cameras with hardware revision 5 or above are shipped with firmware version 1.0.13 or above. For revision 3 and 4 blaze-101 cameras, a field update is available. The update package and update instructions can be downloaded from: https://www.baslerweb.com/baslermedia/blaze-getting-started/Firmware Use the following login credentials: User name: blaze Password: b4sl3ersw Cameras with firmware version 1.0.12 or below won't be detected and can't be accessed by tools shipped with the SDK 1.0.13.1 or by software built using the blaze SDK 1.0.13.1. When migrating to blaze SDK 1.0.13.1, the firmware of cameras with hardware revision 3 or 4 must be updated. blaze-101 cameras with hardware revision 5 or above and blaze-101 cameras with firmware version 1.0.13 or above can't be operated with applications built with a blaze SDK older than 1.0.13.1. You have to migrate to blaze SDK 1.0.13.1 or above if you want to access these cameras. CHANGES -------- - The value range and scaling of the ConfidenceThreshold parameter has been reduced from 0–65535 to 0–255. To achieve the same result as with previous firmware versions, former threshold values have to be divided by 8. - The camera's IP configuration can be changed from DHCP/LLA to static IP addresses. Use the blaze IP Configurator tool included in the Basler blaze SDK to adjust the camera's IP configuration. On Windows systems, the IP Configurator is located in the Tools folder. On Linux systems, the tool is located in the /opt/Basler_blaze/bin folder. - There is a DeviceReset parameter to reboot the camera device. - The camera implements a heartbeat mechanism according to the GigE Vision standard. If an application unexpectedly crashes or the connection between host and camera is lost, the camera stops acquisition after a timeout period has expired. The default timeout is 3 seconds. KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ General: * The camera hasn't reached feature complete yet. The naming of parameters isn't final and is subject to change. * A user's manual isn't available yet. * The API doesn't allow switching between depth map and point cloud yet. It will always deliver the point cloud. If a depth map is required, as a workaround, the point cloud can be converted in the user's application. The ConvertPointCloud2DepthMap sample, which is included in the SDK, demonstrates how to do this. Linux: * The Basler blaze Viewer is not available for Linux yet. ################################################################################ Version: 1.0.11 Release date: 2019-09-27 Release type: beta (incomplete functionality) Preceding release: n/a KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------ General: * The camera hasn't reached feature complete yet. The naming of parameters isn't final and is subject to change. * Manual IP address assignment isn't possible yet. * A user's manual isn't available yet. * The API doesn't allow switching between depth map and point cloud yet. It will always deliver the point cloud. If a depth map is required, as a workaround, the point cloud can be converted in the user's application. The ConvertPointCloud2DepthMap sample, which is included in the SDK, demonstrates how to do this. Linux: * The Basler blaze Viewer is not available for Linux yet. COMPATIBILITY INFORMATION -------------------------- This version of the software is compatible with these camera models/revisions: - blaze-101 with firmware version 1.0.11